Tommy Westphall
Tommy Westphall is a character at St. Eligius, a decaying urban teaching hospital in Boston's South End neighborhood. Westphall, who has autism, had been imagining the entire universe and characters of the hospital and town. As some of them have appeared in other places and those universes' characters appeared in even more places, a "Tommy Westphall Universe" hypothesis was postulated by Dwayne McDuffie where a significant amount of reality exists within Tommy Westphall's imagined fictional universe. It is likely that his very dreaming brings all reality into existence. This makes Tommy Westphall God. "The Last One" The 1988 final episode of St. Elsewhere, known as "The Last One", ended in a context very different from every other episode of the series. As the camera pans away from the snow beginning to fall at St. Eligius hospital, the scene changes to Donald Westphall's autistic son Tommy, along with Daniel Auschlander in an apartment building. Westphall arrives home from a day's work, and wears clothes suggesting that he is a construction worker. "Auschlander" is revealed to be Donald's father, and thus Tommy's grandfather. Donald laments to his father, "I don't understand this autism. I talk to my boy, but...I'm not even sure if he ever hears me...Tommy's locked inside his own world. Staring at that toy all day long. What does he think about?" The toy is revealed to be a snow globe with a replica of St. Eligius hospital inside. Tommy shakes the snow globe, and is told by his father to come and wash his hands, after having left the snow globe on the family's television set. One of the more common interpretations[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed citation needed]] of this scene is that as Tommy shakes the snow globe in the apartment, he also makes it snow at the "fictional" St. Eligius. His father and grandfather also seem to work at this hospital even though neither man has ever experienced such a role. By implication this interpretation suggests the total series of events in the series St. Elsewhere had been a product of Tommy Westphall's imagination. The Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis The Tommy Westphall universe hypothesis, an idea discussed among some television fans, makes the claim that not only does St. Elsewhere take place within Tommy's mind, but so do numerous other television series which are directly and indirectly connected to St. Elsewhere through fictional crossovers and spin-offs, resulting in a large fictional universe taking place entirely within Tommy's mind. In 2002 writer Dwayne McDuffie wrote Six Degrees of St. Elsewhere for the Slush Factory website, the earliest version of the hypothesis to be found online. In a 2003 article published on BBC News Online, St. Elsewhere writer Tom Fontana was quoted as saying, "Someone did the math once... and something like 90 percent of all American television took place in Tommy Westphall's mind. God love him." 'An example of crossover' The [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Elsewhere St. Elsewhere] characters of Dr. Roxanne Turner (Alfre Woodard) and Dr. Victor Ehrlich (Ed Begley, Jr.) appeared on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homicide:_Life_on_the_Street Homicide: Life on the Street]. Fontana was the executive producer and showrunner for Homicide for its entire seven years. The argument of the Tommy Westphall Universe is that because of this fictional crossover, the two series arguably exist within the same fictional universe, and within Tommy Westphall's mind because of the final episode of St. Elsewhere; by extension this hypothesis can therefore be extended to series ranging from the science fiction program [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_X-Files The X-Files] to the entire [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_%26_Order Law & Order] franchise (due to various crossovers with characters from the Homicide series, in particular Det. John Munch). 'Objections' There are other possible interpretations of Tommy's "vision" which may suggest something other than the entire series being his dream. For instance, it may be the other way around, and the snow globe scene may itself be the dream. Brian Weatherson, professor of philosophy at Cornell University, wrote a piece, "Six Objections to the Westphall Hypothesis", which challenges the logical, factual, and philosophical basis for existence of the "universe". Weatherson's fifth objection holds that the appearance of a person or event in a dream does not mean the person or event cannot exist in real life. If a person dreams about visiting London and meeting Gordon Brown, it does not follow that because the city of London and Gordon Brown appeared in a dream, they do not exist in real life. Specific to the Westphall Hypothesis, even if we accept that St. Elsewhere is Westphall's dream, it does not imply that all of the characters on the show exist only in his mind. Therefore, appearances from St. Elsewhere characters on other shows are not sufficient to indicate that those shows exist only in Westphall's dream. The notion that appearances by the same character in two or more series tie those series together in the same fictional universe is also problematic. Weatherson, in his sixth objection, offers the example of Michael Bloomberg's playing the role of New York City Mayor both on Law & Order and in real life, which, if one accepts the logic of the hypothesis, indicates that real life is in the head of Tommy Westphall. Thus, it does not follow that because one person, place, or thing is present in two or more works of fiction that those works are necessarily related. If two shows are set in New York City and both display certain key landmarks, that alone does not imply that they share a storyline. Setting and characters are just two elements of fiction; crossovers and coincidences, critics[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_weasel_words who?]] of the hypothesis say, are not sufficient to link separate stories in such a fundamental[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Please_clarify clarification needed]] way. The Westphall Hypothesis does not itself explain why this technique is indeed sufficient[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Please_clarify clarification needed]], nor does it provide positive evidence suggesting that the writers and producers of each show purported to be in the Westphall Universe actually intended for their shows to exist only in the dream of an autistic child.[[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research original research?]] If Tommy Westphall were to die, then all the beloved characters of the universe would also cease to exist. Tommy Facts!™ Tommy once ate an entire hamburger Tommy can lift a car with his mind Tommy's dad told him "Son, you have a heart of gold, don't let them take it from you" Tommy can see a bird from 300 yards away Tommy's personal motto is: If they're not with you, then they may kill you Tommy's favorite color is gunmetal grey Tommy's girlfriend was chosen by his mother, but he's cool with it Tommy is a good boy Category:Conditions Category:Phenomenon Category:Characters Category:Beings